And we're off....

First of all I must admit that I have little faith in my future as a blogger. I've never been able to keep a journal on any regular basis. And while I love to write, it the easiest activity I have ever found to make excuses not to do. I am at heart a writer. Unfortunately, I don't always put that passion first.

My brain works in mysterious ways and leads me on adventures that seldom end anywhere near where I was heading. For example, I began this caper playing with my new Flip Mino. That led me online to look for royalty free music to use with movies. I did find a site that looks promising. I tried to tag the site with del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site. But I had forgotten my login and had to play that game for a minute. You know the whole what is your this and that game. What is your favorite color? Blue no green...AHHHHH! (Sorry Monte Python detours are bound to happen from time to time.) That led me back to my Gmail account which somehow led me to this blog.

Now if we back up like two days or so, we find that there is some formula here. A couple days ago I was working on a grant application to secure funding for a project I plan to undertake with my students this year. The last part of the grant application involves a line item type list of how the funds would be spent.

One of the items on that list are Flip Minos. The project...amateur film making. That's right! This year my classes are going to create short films a minimum of 30 mins in length that highlight a social or environmental issue that is important to them.

While looking for the perfect camera for this adventure, I found the Flip series of cameras, and well I bought one. It arrived in the mail today, and I started playing with it. It really is quite a nice little camera. Very inexpensive and take amazingly good video.

So I sat down and started playing with the camera after taking random video. Next thing I know, I'm writing my first blog. What I failed to mention is that somewhere between the grant application and my Flip Mino arriving in the mail, I had thought about starting a blog. Had the building been ready, today would have been my first day at Caldwell Early College High School. And even though my start date has been postponed by a week, I can't stop thinking about this upcoming school year.

I'm really excited and at the same time a little uncertain. While this will be my 5th year teaching, it will be like a first year in some ways. My schedule and day to day will not be what it has been. It's a whole new adventure. One I am very much looking forward to starting!

I will be teaching English I (freshmen), and I will have the pleasure of teaching the entire freshmen class. They will be divided into four sections. Unlike the past four years where I taught three sections a semester, I will have these four classes all year but see them on an alternating schedule.

This has caused me to rethink the way I deliver instruction in some cases. I will also be working with a team of teachers who also teach the freshmen class. This has offered opportunities to integrate across the curriculum. We'll be teaching units that compliment and correspond with each other. This too has caused me to rethink my delivery as I typically taught freshmen English by genre not theme. I think I'm going to like the movement to theme. I'm also going to like being challenged again to rethink the way I teach.

At any rate, I plan to use a wiki to help my students keep the world informed as to our progress this year, and I am going to try to post blogs to update from my point of view. All of which will be linked from my school website.

This was a really random rant! And knowing me, they all will be. Well, it's time to move on...here we go!